Mawlana Mawdudi and Political Islam

Authority and the Islamic state

Roy Jackson

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2010
• eBook ISBN: 9781136950353
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Political Ideologies
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Mawlana Mawdudi was one of the most influential and important Islamic thinkers of the modern world, whose brand of political Islam has won widespread acceptance in South and South East Asia as well as the Middle East. He was not only an Islamic scholar, but also a journalist and political activist who founded the Jama'at-i-Islami, which has subsequently influenced the development of many Islamic movements and parties throughout the Muslim world.

This book is the first to critically engage and assess his career and legacy within the wider context of political Islam. It includes coverage of his early life and influences, and examines his considerable influence in the contemporary Islamic world. The issues that were a concern for Mawdudi and continue to have resonance for our world today include such questions as the role of women in Islam, the possibilities for democracy in an Islamic state, the importance of jihad, and the moral and religious responsibility of the individual. Whilst focus is on Mawdudi's life and writings, this is placed within the wider context of topical, often contentious, Islamic thought.

Providing an up-to-date and detailed critical study of Mawlana Mawdudi and many issues surrounding political Islam both in his time and today, this book will be an important text for scholars of Islamic Studies, Political Science and Philosophy.

Part I
The life and times of Mawdudi

1
A noble lineage (1903–19)

I belong to one such family that has a 1300 year history of guiding, asceticism and Sufism.¹

Mawdudi and the Mughals

If you ever visit Lahore, be sure to take in the Diwan-i-Aam, the ‘Hall of Public Audience’. This magnificent white marble structure was completed by the great Mughal Emperor Jalaluddin Muhammad Akbar (1542–1605) who, it is said, would use this space to converse with scholars and believers from all religious faiths. If you visit and talk to people of Pakistan about this structure, as well as the Lahore Fort it is housed in, you will most likely be told that during the reign of Akbar, India experienced a time of relative peace and prosperity, as well as religious and social tolerance. Things are never that clear-cut, of course, but certainly Akbar, though a Muslim, had little time for a strict adherence to Islamic law, sharia or for sectarianism between Shia and Sunni Muslims. His ambitious aim was to create a single community of Sunni and Shia, Muslims and Hindus living in an environment that inculcated religious toleration and equality of status. The Emperor also, of course, wished to pass on this legacy to his heir and was in need of a son. There is a story that a mystic by the name of Salim Chisti (1478–1572) came to the emperor and blessed him. This resulted in the first of three sons born to him who was to become another great emperor in Mughal history, Nuruddin Salim Jahangir; the middle name in honour of this mystic. The Emperor Akbar bestowed patronage upon Salim Chisti and this helped the growth of what is known as the Chisti Order, which is renowned for its emphasis on love, tolerance and openness.

The tomb of Salim in Uttar Pradesh is a beautiful marble mausoleum where the current master – pir, or sheikh as they are usually referred to – of the Order resides. Women to this day, seeking a child, go to the shrine and pray that Salim will intercede. The Chisti is a Sufi order, that aspect of Islam that is concerned more with the mystical features of the religion. The origins of the Order go back further than Salim, however. In fact, the Chisti Order originates in around the tenth century AD in a small town called Chist, which is near the city of Herat in western Afghanistan. The order was founded by the Syrian Abu Ishaq Shami (d. AD 940) and the most famous of its saints is Moinuddin Chisti (also known as Khawaja Baba, 1141–1230) who settled in Ajmer in India’s Rajasthan state. The beautiful city of Ajmer is an important centre for pilgrimage. The Emperor Akbar himself would come here with his wife every year. Another Chisti master was Khwaja Qutbuddin Mawdud Chisti (d.1133) who spurned a progeny of Chisti saints, known as the Mawdudiyah. One of these in particular is recognized in the Chisti lineage for helping towards the spread of the Order in India: Abu’l-A’la Mawdudi (d.1527).

The central focus of this book is another Mawdudi some four hundred years later. With such a lineage, it is not surprising that Sheikh Sayyid Abu’l-A’la Mawdudi (1903–79) should achieve at least some status. Although not much else is factually known about Mawdudi’s family history, he says himself that the Mawdudis moved to Delhi in the eighteenth century. His father, Sayyid Ahmad Hasan, was born in Delhi in 1855 and his grandfather was Mir Sayyid Hasan, a Sufi pir, who was quite influential in the Mughal court. Mawdudi was born on 25 September 1903 in the city of Aurangabad in Maharashtra state, India. Various other spellings of Mawdudi are Maudoodi and Maududi, and he is also known as Mawlana (or Maulana). When considering how much authority a person possesses, that person’s name and honorific title can reveal much. Mawdudi is one such person. The title given to him of ‘Mawlana’, for example, means something like ‘our lord’ or ‘our master’ and is usually a form of address to a sovereign, although more commonly in the Indian subcontinent for respected religious leaders. In addition, the title of ‘Sheikh’ (Sheik, Cheikh, Shaikh) literally means ‘elder’ from the Arabic and was originally the traditional title given to Bedouin tribal leaders. The title ‘Sayyid’ has really no comparison in the western sense; perhaps the word ‘Lord’ gives some indication of the nobility that the title possess, and it is given to males who can trace their lineage right back to the Prophet Muhammad in the sixth century AD through his grandsons Hasan ibn Ali and Husayn ibn Ali: the sons of the fourth Rightly Guided Caliph (the prophet Muhammad’s cousin) Ali ibn Abi Talib and his wife (the Prophet Muhammad’s daughter) Fatima Zahra. In this sense, a Sayyid is a member of the ‘royal family’ and can also have spiritual connotations, especially in the Shia tradition, and in the mystical Sufi tradition. In fact, in Sufism, only a Sayyid can initiate a Sufi order, or tariqah.

The story of the Mughals is closely tied with that of the Mawdudis, for while the status of the Mawdudis increased with the power of the Mughals, it also declined in line with that of Mughals and the arrival of the Europeans in India. Mawdudi comes at such a point when the Mughal dynasty comes to an end. It is believed by many to this day that the Emperor Akbar encapsulated both the political ruler and the spiritual teacher for he believed that spiritual guidance lay especially with a combination of divine inspiration through spiritual exercise and dialectical reasoning, rather than the observance of Islamic law as dictated by the religious scholars, the ulama. Akbar rejected much of sharia, partly because he was not convinced that much of it came from reliable sources. Legitimacy, rather, did not come from obedience to sharia but rather a more direct access to God’s will via divine inspiration. Naturally, many orthodox scholars were suspicious of this approach. This Mughal Emperor believed that he was the ‘Perfect Man’, al-insan al-kamil, who received divine revelation. During the mid-1580s, he introduced a whole new religion, the ‘Divine Faith’ (Din Ilahi), for which Akbar himself was its spiritual master. This was seen as heresy by most orthodox Muslims. His inclusivist policies were continued by the next two emperors, Jahangir (r. 1605–27) and Shah Jahan (r. 1628–58). Many Muslims, as well as Hindus, found such religious reforms insufferable and sought to retreat within their own traditions. The consequences of seeking universality within society is that it can disguise the underlying differences between them. Akbar criticized the caste system, to the chagrin of Hindus, and criticized the ulama and sharia, to the annoyance of orthodox Muslims. Although something of a generalization, in many respects the period of Mughal rule was not one of religious self-identity: Emperor Akbar, for example, abolished the jizyah tax placed on dhimmis (non-Muslims), as well as giving up hunting and becoming a vegetarian, so as not to offend Hindus. He built temples for Hindus and adopted a pluralistic approach to religious belief, embracing all religious traditions. This universalism was not accepted by all Muslims at the time, of course, and the last major Mughal Emperor, Aurangzeb, tried to Islamize all of India, which only resulted in hostility from Hindus and Sikhs. Nonetheless, on the whole, the reason the Muslim Mughal empire survived as long as it did was because it generally did not adopt a ‘them and us’ strategy. While it is true that many Muslims enjoyed an elite status as the ‘rulers’ of India, many Indians of other religious traditions also enjoyed positions of patronage. The accentuation of religious differences became much more marked, however, with the arrival of the British, who stressed the importance of religious ties, with good intentions in mind.

The last great Emperor was Aurangzeb who died in 1707 and, although the dynasty continued for another 150 years, they were essentially ‘lesser’ Mughals. The last Emperor, Bahadur Shah II (1775–1862), ruled over Delhi only and, in fact, was imprisoned and later exiled by the British for his involvement in the Indian Rebellion in 1857. This Rebellion is worth mentioning as it was a major turning point in Indian history, as well as marking out the Mawdudis as anti-British from then on. Indian soldiers had for years fostered an anger for their British officers who treated them badly and, politically, the British came across as indifferent and superior towards the Mughals. The specific reason for the Rebellion was that the soldiers refused to use the new Enfield rifle as the cartridges contained cow and pig fat. Soldiers had to break the cartridges with their teeth before loading them in their rifles, thus offending both Hindus and Muslims. Although this may well have been the catalyst, no doubt the accumulation of British abuse piled up over the years. The Mughal Emperor Bahadur agreed to lead the Rebellion and the revolt spread throughout northern India before the British finally put a stop to it in 1858 after a series of battles. The British then abolished the British East India Company and was replaced with direct rule under the British sovereign. In 1887, Queen Victoria took the title Empress of India. The Mughal system, which reached its maturity during the reign of Emperor Akbar, should not be seen as a Muslim state which gave power to Muslims to the exclusion of all others. In fact, India at the time was run on the lines of the courts of Safavid Iran, with Persian language and culture at its centre and, although about 80 per cent of the very highest officials, the umara, were Muslim² there were also many Hindus at the lower levels of the court. Simply being a Muslim, regardless of your individual political or economic position, meant having a special status in India, so long as India was Mughal. However, once India became British after the Rebellion, that association – fictional or otherwise – was broken.

Mawdudi and his family were brought up during the time of the break-up of the old Mughal empire and the imposition of British colonial rule. Mawdudi spent his childhood and early youth in Hyderabad where the extremely wealthy and powerful Nizam-ul-Mulk (‘Administrators of the Realm’) effectively ruled independently of the Mughal emperors. India, though majority Hindu, was, as a result of Mughal rule, largely Muslim in shape. The Mawdudis were just one family that had enjoyed noble patronage in this unreal world of Paigah nobility who claim their descent from the second Rightly Guided Caliph, Umar. The court had it chamberlains, household troops, Arab mercenaries with daggers and muskets, rajahs and maharajahs. It was in this feudal and somewhat magical place that Mawdudi’s character was formed. It is no surprise that the change in regimes to British rule would have a profound psychological effect on Mawdudi and many other Indian Muslims. At the time, Muslim identity was pluralistic in character and was not in any way under state control: people were left to practise Islam as they saw fit, which resulted in a variety of practices – notable in Sufi especially – that may well be considered almost heretical by strict orthodox standards. Muslims tended to cluster in small communities around mosques, schools, the tombs of Sufi saints and gentry residences of the Muslim quarters and qasbahs (small towns) of India. With the decline of Mughal rule, this coincided with the decline of Muslim rule as Europeans replaced Muslims in positions of authority, land was transferred from Muslims to Hindus, nobles were deprived of taxes, and unemployment increased. British missionaries suppressed religious practices that they considered barbaric, English was taught in schools, and, in 1837, Persian was abolished as the official language of the Mughal court. Also, sharia was challenged with the introduction of English law and the court system.

How Muslims should respond to this can be categorized in three distinct ways: first, there were those who adopted a non-political stance and so believed that nothing need be done about British rule other than to carry on ‘being Muslim’ as in praying, attending mosques, respecting sharia and venerating saints. This was a view held not only by most of the ulama at the time, but by such large groups as the Barelwis³ who also follow the Hanafi school of law. A second response was typified by the Sufi Indian Muslim Shah Wali Allah (1703–62) who was a Naqshbandi shaykh and promoted sharia particularism over Muslim universalism that was the example set by Moghul emperors such as Akbar. He argued that unbelievers – referring specifically to Hindus – should not be accorded the same social status as Muslims and, in fact, should be agricultural labourers at best who should also pay a hefty poll tax (jizya) for Muslim protection. Shah Wali Allah had gone on a pilgrimage to Mecca which lasted two years (1730–2) during which time he received some education in other reform movements, particularly that of Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab, who was his contemporary. Wali Allah was influenced by al-Wahhab but where the former differed was in his less confrontational approach towards what al-Wahhab would have regarded as un-Islamic and heretical. Al-Wahhab’s militant approach led to the destruction of Sufi orders under the military command of Ibn Saud, whereas Wali Allah sought the reform of Sufism, but his tolerance only extended to Muslims and his concern was with Muslim identity and survival as much as it was for Sirhindi. Wali-Allah was an advocate of Islamic reform and the establishment of a traditional Islamic state, not the watering down of Islam within a pluralistic society. From this perspective, Wali-Allah undoubtedly considered Islam to be the superior religion to that of its non-Muslim counterparts. Wali-Allah’s teachings resulted in a revival of Islamic thought in India. His son, Abd al-’Aziz (1746–1824) promoted his father’s teachings by encouraging local communities to elect their own imams and adhere to them rather than be subject to the increasing presence of British rule at that time. A disciple of Wali Allah’s son, Sayyid Ahmad Barelewi (1786–1831) went further in ushering in a jihad movement against both the Sikh armies and the British. In 1826, with his holy warriors, he defeated an army of Sikhs at Balakot in what is now the North-West Frontier Province in Pakistan. He established what proved to be a short-lived religio-political state based on sharia with himself as leader. Barelewi was killed in battle in 1831, but his jihad movement continued to harass the British. The third response came from the former political elites who sought a compromise between Islam and modernity: rather than reject the west or retreat into Islamic tradition, they sought for a ‘modern Islam’. This was typified by the work of Sayyid Ahmad Khan and the so-called Aligarh experiment.

The Aligarh experiment

With the end of the Muslim Mughal emperors, the patronage of Muslims – the minority in India – was also under threat. The British embarked on a political restructuring, admitting Hindu Indians into the civil service. Indians became more politically aware and better educated, with the founding of the Indian National Congress in 1885 which, although supposed to represent all of India, failed to attract Muslims, feeling that it did not represent Muslim interests. This resulted in the Indian educator and politician Sir Sayyid Ahmed Khan (1817–98) establishing the residential Muhammedan Anglo-Oriental College (also known as the Madrasat ul-’ul[umacr]m Musalman

n) in Aligarh in 1875 with the aim of promoting the education of Indian Muslims by teaching them western-style education. Aligarh is about 80 miles south and a little east of Delhi. The college was partly financed by a British government subsidy, and was an affiliate of Calcutta University until 1887 when it became a part of the new Allahabad University. Ahmed Khan was pro-British, hence the knighthood, and he supported the British during the Indian Rebellion. He said that Muslims should be loyal to the British Raj and to learn from them rather than rebel against them. He was critical of religious orthodoxy and instead encouraged Muslims to study western science. The college, which he intended to be a ‘Muslim Cambridge’ was established with this intent.

The two original thinkers of Sayyid Ahmad Khan and Mawlana Mawdudi were similar in some respects and vastly different in others. They were both Sunni Muslims who had strong ethical positions in the face of immense social, political and religious change. They were also, of course, from the same distinct Indian Islamic culture and from a privileged status at a time when that status was in decline. In both cases they look to Islamic tradition for answers, although the answers they come up with are certainly different, and at the same time can be described as modern thinkers; not merely burying their heads in that tradition. Importantly, neither of these great thinkers saw modernity as a final nail in the coffin for Islam, but rather saw modernity – at least certain aspects of it – as an opportunity to revitalize their religion. They were concerned with how to be a Muslim in the modern age and they devoted their lives to communicating what they considered to be the best way to be a Muslim. In that sense their message is strongly ethical in the Greek philosophical sense of the term: what does it mean to be good?

In India in 1881 there were 50 million Muslims, about one-fifth of the Indian population,⁴ and the importance of Ahmad Khan for the British was that he was an Indian Muslim the...

Table of contents

• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• Part I The life and times of Mawdudi
• Part II Mawdudi and political Islam
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index